Around the World in Books / Hungary

A Gem From ‘Hungary’s Jane Austen’

A suspenseful novel of World War II finds a strong-willed heroine sent to a draconian girls’ school for reasons she can’t fathom

Still from the Hungarian miniseries of “Abigail,” called “Abigel” / Credit: Magyar Televízió

This is the ninth post in the “Around the World in Books” series that will review 30 books from 30 countries in the first 30 days of March. Tomorrow: India

Anglophone critics have — rightly and wrongly — called Magda Szabó “Hungary’s Jane Austen.” Her bestselling Abigail shows why that label both hits and misses the mark.

Like Pride and Prejudice, this haunting novel centers on an intelligent young woman whose first impressions lead her astray, sometimes comically. Gina Vitay has meddlesome tendencies also reminiscent of those of the heroine of Emma. As in both Austen novels, the plot of Abigail involves a tight circle of family and friends in the countryside — in this case, a Hungarian town hours from Budapest, where Gina had led the privileged life of the only child of a widowed, high-raking general.

But Austen and Szabó differ in an important way. Austen didn’t write about the great political and historical upheavals of the 19th century — the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, the emerging power of America.